Few students groups that are assigned to work together in class take time at the beginning of their relationship to talk about what they want and the values that they bring to the group. As a result, the teams discover (often too late) that members are pulling in different directions. They begin to care more about protecting themselves than they do about caring for one another. For example, you know that you are being protective of yourself when you find yourself saying, “I can’t count on my teammates. If I want a good grade, I’ll just have to do the whole project myself.”

This dysfunction is exhibited in some CEE300 student teams every year. It is a failure of leadership.

Leaders must be vulnerable.

Because leadership is an explicit learning objective in CEE300 – Engineering Business Practices, it behooves us to understand this failure and how to overcome it. In this video, former NBA Coach Phil Jackson shares some of his insights on the leadership style that resulted in 11 championships over his multi-decade career:

Note that Jackson always prioritizes the well-being of his players over the “scoreboard.” That is, winning championships (or earning A grades) does not result from focus on the score, but from focus on the well being of the players.

Leaders accept responsibility for the emotional well-being of the team.

One of the things that Jackson is famous for is establishing a shared sense of values (called culture) at the beginning of the season. For example, he might gather his team before the season and ask, “What is our goal?”

If they all want to win the Championship, then they have shared vision towards which they can work. That is, they are aligned with the same goal.

But Jackson goes further. He will also ask, “What values do we bring to our team that will help us accomplish this goal?”

Typically, these values are things like, hard work, arriving on time, teamwork, preparation, communication and support for each other. No one starts a new team venture and claims that the values they bring are selfishness, pettiness, gossip, and criticism.

However, the team inevitably goes astray from the values that they construct at the beginning. That’s when Jackson can return to the statements they all agreed upon together and ask, “Have these values changed? Do we want something different now than we did before?”

Engineering students can adopt similar leadership techniques in their own groups. That is, they can share their alignment with another. They can identify specific tasks that accord with the levels of commitment each student is capable of making to the team. And they can hold themselves accountable when their behaviors are inconsistent with the values that they claimed to embrace at the outside.

Leaders build trust among teammates.

To be a leader in CEE300 requires at least these three things: 1) personal vulnerability, 2) responsibility for the well-being of others, and 3) trustworthiness.